


Florens

by stew (julie)



Category: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (1984)
Genre: F/M, First Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1996-01-01
Updated: 1996-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22295467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/stew
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Rawhide and his big brother are finally heading back to the States – except right now they are stuck in Jedda due to the Suez Canal crisis. Which is when Rawhide first falls in love, with a woman who is as out of his league as the stars in the sky…
Relationships: Rawhide (Buckaroo Banzai)/Other(s)





	Florens

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes:** This is a prequel to my story [‘Buckaroo’s First Recruit’](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22129297). I can’t remember my thought processes, but Gabriel is my unofficial ‘real name’ for Rawhide. 
> 
> **First published:** in my zine “Samurai Errant: Cavalier Tales Quixotic and Profane” #5 on 1 January 1996

# Florens

♦

‘Whaddaya mean, we’re staying in Jedda?’

‘We’re stuck here,’ Pete replied patiently. ‘Feisal won’t take the _Ghabaisha_ out of port until this Suez business settles down again.’

‘But that could be weeks!’

‘Well, don’t yell at me, Gabe. It wasn’t my idea to come here in the middle of all this.’

‘It was your idea to get work on the _Ghabaisha_.’

‘We need the money to get back to the States, remember?’

‘Yeah, well, we don’t get the money until we dock at Yemen, do we? And that could be weeks now. If we get there at all.’

‘Hey, kid.’ Pete reached out to ruffle my hair in his usual big-brotherly manner. ‘What’s the problem? Suddenly lose interest in all things Arabian? Thought you’d welcome the chance to hang around in Jedda for a while.’

‘I don’t know,’ I muttered. ‘It’s just that I wanted to get to Chicago, huh?’

Pete sat next to me on his bunk. ‘We’ll get there. You knew it would take a while. We agreed we needed to get some money together first, didn’t we?’

‘I just wasn’t counting on sitting around here.’

‘Come on, kid, cheer up. Go have a look around. If I know you, you could quite happily spend a year here. There’s not just the town – there’s a nomadic tribe camped out south.’

‘Yeah?’

He smiled at my grudging show of interest, knowing me well enough to guess what was on my mind. ‘Yes, you can go now. Just be back by nightfall, right? And avoid the soldiers!’

‘I know, I know.’

As far as I was concerned, Pete got an unhealthy kick from taking over my parenting. Just on half my life ago, when I was eight, our Ma and Pop got killed in a car wreck, and all my other brothers dispersed throughout America, and I ended up stuck with Pete. I guess, as the eldest, he always had an aggravated sense of responsibility. Plus a good dose of megalomania.

Half my life ago. Realizing that, it seemed like some kind of portent. I stopped in my tracks for a moment.

The modern parts of Jedda around the port were much the same as most of the Arab towns we’d been through, but from where I stood now, I could just see a piece of the old town down an alley. It was like magic. I turned and made my way through.

The concrete walls of the two unimaginative modern buildings ended after about a hundred yards. Then the old town began. I stood there gazing up four stories of haphazard angles and white walls to a narrow gap of bluest sky. The windows, grey wooden panels of intricate lattice-work, had not yet been replaced by glass. As I turned around, head back, my shoulders brushed the houses on each side of the street.

Entranced, I kept walking. The sand underfoot was damp and solid, my footsteps silent. The air was moist and still and ages old – not stale, exactly, but eternal. It seemed, in the quiet, that these houses and the sand and the air had endured, and would endure, forever.

And then footsteps, round a corner. Nothing I could quite hear; a movement in the air, perhaps. A presence. I ran a few steps to look down a cross-street. A woman, the faint tinkle of jewelry, a blue shawl falling back from her shoulders in this private place, masses of long dark hair loose down her back.

She was gone. The alleys, the houses, were so bent that you could only see so far in any given direction. Except up. That six-inch strip of sky looked like it stretched to infinity. I imagined that the stars at night must seem very close and bright through the gap.

I walked on past heavy teak doors, intricately chiseled window casings. Everything so quiet and still. Even the people I squeezed past or glimpsed through the windows looked like they’d been there for ever, calmly going about their business.

For a moment, I thought I saw the same woman again, lifting her green muslin skirts just above her sandals and ankle-chains to tread delicately up a flight of stairs.

Eventually I found myself out in the modern world again; a busy, wide and jarring street. I continued south, heading for the gates and the Bedouins.

At the nomadic camp, in a different way, I found another oasis of an older world. The large tents were the same as they had always been, all faded reds and browns, the patient camels herded away, the Bedouin people in their traditional robes and head-dresses. But they had taken modern objects – an aluminum kettle, a rifle, a floppy straw hat – and made them their own. An integration of what was useful to them.

I found a guy about my own age to talk to, and we hunkered down by the campfire and the pot of stew he was tending. It wasn’t hard to get him telling me about his life – it was mostly complaints about the limbo he felt that he and the other young Bedouins were trapped in.

That was when the kid turned up. I felt a finger poking my shoulder for attention and turned around to look straight into a child’s face. Having had little experience with children, I had no idea of how old she was. In her pink cotton trousers and tunic, with her warm brown skin and loose hair, she was lovely.

‘Hello,’ I said, ‘and what are you wanting?’ It was a rhetorical question as even I could tell she wasn’t able to hold a conversation just yet. The guy I was talking to was no help – he’d turned away with an expression of disgust as soon as he saw the child. I had no idea why; I was enchanted by her. ‘Are you looking for your Ma? Because I don’t think I quite qualify.’

‘Umm,’ the kid said, which as far as I could remember was Arabic for mother.

‘It’s not me, I promise you,’ I told the kid in a friendly tone. No point in spooking it, after all. She poked me again, and then lifted her arms, wanting to be picked up. ‘Who does she belong to?’ I asked the guy. He pointedly didn’t answer.

Standing, I took the girl up into my arms and she settled comfortably into my side, head on my shoulder. I looked around for anyone who seemed like they’d lost a child. That’s when I saw her.

She was beautiful, a wild restless thing. The woman I’d glimpsed in the old town, all in loose green and blue. She’d draped her shawl properly around her shoulders and over her hair now, framing her face. Slim and small, yet strong. I opened my mouth to speak, afraid of saying the wrong thing. Afraid she’d just pick up and leave in impatience with me. I ended up simply asking, ‘Is this your daughter?’

‘Yes.’ A lovely deep voice, amused. ‘Jordan, what are you doing?’

‘Umm,’ the girl said contentedly, never stirring from my arms.

‘I think she’s adopted me.’ I wished.

‘She’s not usually so friendly with strangers.’ The woman regarded me again, probably trying to work out what the kid saw in me.

‘I guess I don’t look particularly scary,’ I shrugged. I tried loosening my hold, but Jordan just hung on tighter. I was glad – if I kept a hold of her, then I could keep a hold on her mother’s attention.

‘No, you don’t,’ the woman agreed, a laugh in her voice. Then she did laugh as I stood taller, masculinity affronted. ‘My name’s Florens,’ she offered, reaching out a hand to be shaken.

‘Gabriel,’ I told her, and shook her hand.

‘You were named for an angel.’ She looked at me with wondering eyes. I stood there, struck dumb again. ‘What’s a girl have to do to be asked out for a cup of coffee these days?’

‘You wanna have a cup of coffee with me?’ I repeated, skeptical.

‘Sure I do.’

‘Oh. OK. Let’s go into town, then.’ I tried a smile, and it felt good, if a little goofy. I kept a hold on Jordan, and walked along next to Florens. The noise behind us was the guy by the campfire spitting in disgust. ‘What’s his problem? He wouldn’t even tell me Jordan’s name.’

‘Well, like most of the tribe, Mahout doesn’t exactly approve of me and little Jordan here – not that she’s done anything wrong. The sins of the fathers, don’t you say?’

‘I guess.’ Pete and I had been God-less for a long time now. It was strange to hear Ma’s words from this woman’s lips, half a life and half a world away. ‘What could they have against _you_?’ I burst out after a moment’s silence. Florens seemed all charm and strength and beauty to me, and not in the least offensive.

She turned a little to look me in the eye as we left the camp behind. ‘I couldn’t tell them who Jordan’s father was,’ she confided, with the slightest wry smile. ‘Couldn’t, or maybe wouldn’t.’

‘Ah…’ Good news for me at least! Not that I had a hope in the world, but my poor heart beat easier knowing there wasn’t a husband somewhere to hold her. Then I thought of it again from her point of view. ‘That sort of thing’s taken pretty seriously around these parts,’ I mused aloud. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘I’m under my father’s protection. He’s about the only person who still talks to me.’

‘You must be very lonely,’ I said.

She smiled, broader this time. ‘Mahout back there probably thinks I’m dragging you off in order to give Jordan a little brother or sister.’

Blushing furiously, I kept my gaze on her long enough to see the mischievousness in her smile. Wishing I could spy a little seriousness, too. In vain. ‘I’m sure that’s highly unlikely,’ I said.

‘That Mahout has such a dirty mind?’ Mock-surprised.

‘That you should even want to drag me off in the first place,’ I amended, looking back at her. ‘Where’d you learn to be so bold?’

‘I was born perverse, that’s what my father says.’ She continued her story as we sat outside a cafe and ordered drinks. Jordan remained firmly in my lap. ‘He loved my mother very much. I never knew her, she died when I was a child. My father loved me, too, and never curbed me. We used to travel back when we still had some money, all through Europe. He gave me an education, and confidence and high spirits. Then he had to protect me from the rest of the tribe as a result of my _foreign morals_. When they knew I was pregnant –’ Florens shuddered, and then frowned. ‘I think he still loves me.’

‘How could he not?’ I murmured. Here was definitely a damsel in distress. Even a strong person used to independence can find themselves trapped in an intolerable situation. ‘Why don’t you leave the tribe?’

Her quick reply indicated that she’d thought of it often enough. ‘But what would I do? Such an informal education… I don’t want to sweep floors or walk the streets. And who would look after Jordan?’

‘I would.’ Hurt a little by her laugh, I continued, thinking it through as I talked. ‘Pete, he’s my brother, we’re getting a bit of money together and heading for Chicago. You could come, too. Between the three of us, we could sort out who’s going to work and who can look after Jordan. I’m going to be studying at the university if I can pass the entrance exam, so I’ll have plenty of time –’

‘Stop!’ Florens held up her hands. ‘Our coffee’s not even cold yet, and you’re offering me the world. Do you make a habit of doing this?’

‘No.’

‘Then why?’

I sat there looking at her for a while, then I looked down at Jordan, stroked her hair. ‘Because it’s something I can do for you,’ I said. I was blushing again. All over.

‘Why me?’

Unable to look at her, I smiled self-consciously. ‘Why the hell hasn’t someone taken you away from this before?’ I murmured.

‘Because there’s never been anyone like you, Gabriel. You, with your childish enthusiasms and loyalties.’ As I bridled, she added, ‘In a man’s body,’ which did not mollify me. I didn’t figure she meant it.

‘I won’t talk of it,’ I offered. ‘But we’ll be in port for a while. When we go, you can come, too, if you want. We’ll pay your passage.’

‘We can be friends while you’re here,’ she gently offered.

‘I would like that,’ I said very formally, like a complete idiot. And, just by watching me so knowingly, she made me smile again.

♦

‘Little brother, you really take the cake,’ Pete said. He was beyond swearing, beyond yelling, into that scary calmness I’d rarely seen before.

‘She probably won’t even come,’ I repeated dispiritedly. ‘But I had to offer. There’s nothing for her if she stays, don’t you see?’

‘Just how disinterested is this noble gesture of yours, kid?’

‘Extremely so.’

‘You’re thinking with your gonads. You’re gonna get us in a lot of trouble.’

‘It’s not for me, it’s for her! She deserves someone’s help.’

He gazed down at me in our narrow cabin. The wooden structure of the ship creaked around us, the water slapped against the hull. Pete reached out to ruffle my hair, but stopped himself mid-gesture. He said quietly, sympathetically, ‘Is she very beautiful?’

‘She deserves our help,’ I repeated stolidly. I couldn’t figure whether Pete suddenly deciding I was too old to have my hair ruffled was more or less annoying than him ruffling it anyway.

‘Poor boy.’ When I glared at him, he flared back into yelling. ‘Do you know what her father, her tribe would do to us? They still kill people for adultery over here, you know! They stone them to death!’

‘It’s unlikely, isn’t it? They don’t care about her. Her father would probably be relieved. I’ve been there, I’ve seen it – they treat her and Jordan like they don’t even exist.’

Pete remained unconvinced. After going over the same ground twice more, he refused to even speak about it. But then, without the futile argument going on, I had time to sit back and remember just what Florens had looked like, what she’d said, how she’d been alternately respectful and teasing. And also what a hit I’d made with Jordan.

♦

Florens and I had arranged to meet for breakfast the next day at the same café in town. Once he worked this out (I guess I was taking a little extra trouble with my appearance) Pete invited himself along. It wouldn’t take him long to figure the angles here in Jedda, but until then he’d be at a loose end. Plus, of course, he was curious.

I was awed to find Florens even more beautiful than she’d been in my dreams the previous night.

‘Good morning,’ she said, smiling up at us. ‘You must be Pete, yes?’

‘Yeah. Pleased to meet you.’ He seemed almost as overwhelmed as I had been. Except he had rather more cool to draw on than me.

While Pete shook Florens’ hand, and sat in the chair closest to her, Jordan launched herself at me. I ended up seated opposite Florens, with her daughter in my lap, just as we had sat the previous afternoon.

I talked for a while about my plans to study for a degree in anthropology, and of course that got me and Pete reminiscing about some of the people we’d met through the world as he’d indulged my interests. We’d mainly travelled through the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region. I was used to skirting around the topic of what Pete did to earn a living for us – most of it was shady, much of it I didn’t even know about. While this often impacted on our stories, because we’d have to leave some place in a hurry or we got mixed up with the wrong people or something like that, I don’t think I roused Florens’ suspicions.

Florens and her father had travelled a great deal in Europe, so she had plenty of tales she told us in turn. She made it sound pretty damned interesting, actually, though I tended to think of Europe as too civilized for me.

Pete kept interrupting her, and contradicting her – politely enough, most of the time. Which was kind of odd, because I thought he liked her. I mean, anyone would think Florens was beautiful, and she was obviously clever, too, just from the way she spoke and the observations she made. Finally Pete said, ‘Well, Gabe and I are going to Chicago. That’s what the kid wants to do, that’s what we’re doing.’

‘I know, Pete. You don’t have to worry about me changing any of that.’

I frowned at her, not understanding what she and Pete were really saying to each other. ‘What do you mean about changing it?’ I shook my head when neither of them answered me. ‘Anyway, Florens, if you want to come, too, we’ll find a way to do that.’

‘I told you, Gabe,’ Pete said, ‘you’re asking for more trouble than you can handle, making offers like that to anyone who takes your fancy.’ He turned to Florens. ‘This kid is always picking up strays. But you’re a smart lady, aren’t you? You’re too smart to take him seriously.’

‘Pete!’ I cried out. ‘Don’t say things like that.’ Calling this beautiful woman a _stray_ , for God’s sake.

My brother stood up, tossed a few notes on the table to pay for the coffee. ‘Time to start growing up, kid. Leave the lady alone.’ And he nodded at her, as if he had some respect for Florens after all, and then Pete walked away.

I watched him go, gaping. Jordan stirred in my arms, and I clumsily patted her, wondering whether she’d understood any of that. Then I turned around, afraid of what I’d see.

To my surprise, Florens simply looked calm. She even smiled at me. ‘Don’t worry, Gabriel,’ she said. ‘He’s just worried about you.’

‘Yeah, right,’ I said with great skepticism.

Her smile deepened. ‘I do believe you understand more than you think. He’s jealous.’

‘Because he likes you, too? It’s not like _I’m_ any competition.’

‘No, he’s jealous of you liking someone else. You and Pete have been together a long time, haven’t you?’

‘Yeah, it’s just been the two of us for eight years now. Half my life.’

‘Well, he doesn’t want to lose that, and here you are talking about taking me and Jordan to Chicago with you.’

I held onto Jordan, and thought about this. Finally I told her, ‘If you need help to leave, if that’s what you want to do, then we’ll do that. I’ll sort things out with Pete if I have to. We’ve been through all kinds of stuff together, me and Pete, we’ll get through this, too.’

But Florens smiled at me gently. ‘I’m not coming to Chicago with you, Gabriel.’

♦

Florens was late to meet me that last night – she insisted it was only ten minutes, but my nerves told me different.

‘Is the _Ghabaisha_ still sailing tomorrow morning, Gabriel?’

‘With the tide. Six o’clock, Feisal says.’

‘Hey, no need to look so glum.’ As we walked slowly away from the camp, she reached to hold my hand in hers. That put a smile on my face, however small. ‘You don’t want to spoil our last date by being sad, do you?’ she chided me.

I snorted in disbelief. ‘ _Date_? Is that how you think of this? You said we’d be friends.’

She just smiled up at me, and we continued on to the outcrop of rocks we’d made ours over the last week. From it, we surveyed the road to Mecca leading out of Jedda, past Florens’ tribe and on into the desert. Above, the stars shone bright as diamonds. I lay back across the rocks to gaze up at them.

‘If I had the money…’ I daydreamed.

‘What would you do?’

‘Have a net of jewels made to twine through your hair.’

‘Sweet Gabriel,’ she laughed. ‘Who taught you how to romance the girls?’

‘That was the pure inspiration of the moment, I’ll have you know.’

‘Must have been Pete’s education.’

‘Ah,’ I sighed. ‘What he’s taught me about girls has been a little more prosaic.’

‘And what would he recommend you do now, lying beside me in the starlight?’

I sat up immediately and turned away a little, blushing furiously. ‘You’re different – don’t worry, he knows that. Not like the others, certainly; not like anyone else at all, actually.’

‘You must have had a lot of girlfriends, Gabriel,’ she said teasingly.

If I could have died right there and then, I swear I would have. ‘No – just… no.’ Nothing I could talk to a lady about. The silence stretched on for a while, the stars slowly turning through the heavens. _This is the last time I’ll ever be with her_.

‘I often dreamed about meeting someone who’d like me for who I am, and Jordan, too. Someone who didn’t judge me for being an unmarried mother, or her for being an illegitimate child.’

‘I like you for who you are,’ I protested. ‘And Pete does, too,’ I hastily added. The full moon was rising, silvering Florens’ face. ‘I think you’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever met.’

‘I know you do,’ she said quietly.

‘You’re so beautiful, Florens,’ I said out of desperation. ‘You… you should be in movies!’

‘Only if you’ll be my leading man.’

I gave her a wry sort of grin. It was just the sort of polite reply your maiden aunt might give you.

‘Can you forget about me being older than you? Forget that I already have a child?’

‘But that’s all a part of who you are – and I love who you are.’

‘And I love who you are, too, Gabriel.’ She smiled at my skepticism and my confusion. ‘Yes, I love you in the same way you love me.’

‘But Pete’s more your age,’ I blurted out.

‘He’s an old man!’ she laughed. ‘ _You_ might put me in his age group, but _I_ feel closer to yours. Anyway, you’re the person I’ve fallen for, like it or not. You and your enthusiasms and charms and knowledge and naivety. Not a world-weary cynic like Pete.’

I sat there for the longest time, looking at her, as the whole world shifted into place around me. ‘There’s no way I deserve this happening.’

‘Believe me, you deserve your heart’s desire more than anyone else I’ve ever met. I don’t believe I deserve to mean that much to you.’

I shook my head. ‘That’s ridiculous.’ But she drew closer, and I lay my hands on her arms, slid them up to her bare shoulders. And she leaned near for my kiss. The stars wheeled overhead. ‘It’s not possible!’

Florens laughed. ‘It’s happening, Gabriel.’ And we lay back together, in each other’s arms. The stone was so cold, I gathered her up on top of me, and hid from the world as her dark hair fell round my face. And we kissed for what must have been hours.

♦

‘I want you to come to Chicago with me,’ I said.

‘I’d like to be with you, Gabriel, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.’

Silence for a long moment. I was just too overwhelmed by all this – imagine Florens actually wanting to be with me. ‘I’ll stay here, then. I’ll stay here with you, until we both work out where we want to be. As long as we’re together.’

‘No, you’re going to university,’ she argued. ‘You and Pete have worked so hard to make that dream come true for you, Gabriel. You need to go to Chicago and study, you need to follow that plan.’

‘How can I do that and leave you behind?’ I gathered her up even closer in my arms. I might be years younger than her, but physically I was a lot bigger. It felt goofy even thinking this, but I felt more like a man with Florens in my arms than I’d ever felt before. ‘I can’t leave you now, Florens. Now that we’ve kissed, now that I know you like me, too.’

‘Ai!’ she wailed. ‘Don’t say that! I’ve been so selfish. I thought, this is our last date, I’ll show him how I feel. I thought that was the nice thing to do. But I was wrong, wasn’t I? It just makes everything worse.’

‘It makes it better,’ I told her, face buried in her hair. ‘How can it make anything worse? It just means there’s no way I’m letting you go now. Come with me.’

‘It’s really not possible.’

‘Then I’ll stay.’

‘That’s even less possible.’

I held her head in both hands, and lifted her up so I could see her. ‘We’ll go collect Jordan, and whatever you want to take with you, and then we’ll head for the _Ghabaisha_. We’ll deal with Pete, he’ll be all right. In the end, he always does what I want, you know.’

‘Does everyone always do what you want?’ she asked warily.

‘No. No, just Pete. And, just this once, you’re going to, too.’

We stared at each other, as I poured all my sixteen-year-old will into trying to make her see – Florens and me, we had to be together. The hell of it was, I could have sworn she was going to tell me _no_ again.

But that was when the guns started firing. Terrible thing, to be thankful for a serious fight breaking out.

‘It’s this business with the Suez canal,’ I said.

‘Yes.’

We sat up, tried to make out what was going on. The fighting seemed to be at the far side of the town, by the river – near the _Ghabaisha_ , perhaps – but it was hard to see. I said to Florens, ‘You don’t want Jordan to get hurt. This is a dangerous place to be. We’ll go get her now, and I’m taking you away from here.’

More silence. She was torn, and I knew I was being unfair bringing Jordan into this when there was fighting going on – no mother would resist an offer of safety for her child, I figured. But Florens hadn’t been fair, either, in not telling me she loved me, too. Desperate times call for desperate measures. At last she said, ‘All right.’

‘You won’t be sorry,’ I promised her. I stood up with her, held her hand as I led her back down to the road. And it all happened as I’d known it would – we collected Jordan, made a brief but difficult farewell with Florens’ father, and crept out of the camp and through the town so quietly that neither the Bedouins nor the soldiers knew we passed by. Pete stared at us hard when we showed up, and didn’t say a word in argument – he just went to sort things out with Feisal.

Florens and Jordan slept together in my bunk for what remained of the night, and didn’t wake even as the _Ghabaisha_ left port. Pete wasn’t talking to me, but he let me share his bunk, and we were comfortable enough with each other just to be that close together for an hour or two. Me and Pete, we were always going to be important to each other.

As for Florens and me – well, we never regretted our love for a moment.

♦


End file.
